Quasars are the shining beacons of the early universe, powered by matter falling onto supermassive black holes at the centres of young galaxies. Their intense brightness makes quasars visible at distances where most ordinary galaxies are too faint to be seen.
The quasar discovered by Mortlock and his colleagues is the most distant yet seen, at an estimated distance of 12.9 billion light years. That means we are seeing it as it was 12.9 billion years ago, when the universe was a mere 770 million years old.
There’s a theory that says we are (or the universe is) a white hole. A white hole is the opposite of a black hole. If we are, then the multiverse theory would have to be correct, and we are nothing more than another universes waste.
Earth’s second moon
Well, not exactly. You need to widen the definition of ‘moon’ quite a bit for it to be considered a moon, but you could call it that. It’s called Cruithne (pronounced cru-een-eeya, a Celtic word), and its orbit was discovered in 1997. It goes around the earth every 770 years, but it actually orbits the sun, creating one of the main problems for calling it a moon (the sun isn’t a planet).
It’s still interesting, though, and the fact that when I found out about it, I was told with certainty that it was ‘earth’s second moon’ made it all much more interesting for me, and that wonderous feeling stayed with me.
This is another image taken by hubble space telescope, in 1995. It is ‘the pillars of creation’, located in the eagle nebula. What this is, is left over gas from the big bang. After the big bang, there was only hydrogen, helium and dark matter. Over time, the gas started swirling around, heating up, and then forming stars. Within stars, other elements were created. As supernovas (a supernova is the death of a star) happened, hydrogen, helium, rock and everything else created within the stars were shot across the universe during the explosion. Over time, rock clumped together, and planets were formed. Basically, everything ‘natural’ and ‘pure’ in the universe is the descendant of a star. Even you.
The nebula that it’s part of has given birth to new stars over millions of years, some of them gargantuan sized, dwarfing our sun. Stars are still being created within this, and therefore everything else. This, in some form, is godlike.
Perspective
This is earth from a distance. 3.7 billion miles away to be exact. It looks almost as a spec of dust does, in a dark room, with a torch (or flash-light) shining. If this is from only 3.7 billion miles away, what size is it really, in comparison to the rest of the universe? If earth is that size, we as physical beings are inexplicably smaller, and our consciousnesses are probably even more tiny. You’d laugh if I told you bacteria understood the workings of the human body on a complex level, so how could you possibly believe we understand the universe on any more than a basic level?
This is a picture taken by the hubble space telescope in 2003. It is a small, seemingly empty patch of sky. Meaning before this image was taken with the telescope, the patch of sky captured looked completely empty. Every single piece of light you see in this image, no matter how big or diminutively small is an entire galaxy. Every single dot or little spot you see is an entire galaxy. Everything illuminated, every dot and spot has millions of stars, every star might have planets orbiting it. If this is all in one ‘empty’ patch of sky, what are the chances of us being alone?
